Because of the increasing size of aircraft, it is necessary to use an increasing number of wheels on their main landing gear in order to distribute the load of the aircraft better. In addition, in order to enable the aircraft to take up a sufficiently nose-high attitude without excessively increasing the length of the struts of the landing gear, it is becoming more and more common practice to use landing gear including a beam mounted to tilt at the rear end of the landing gear strut, with the wheels of the landing gear being distributed along the tilting beam.
When the number of wheels is increased, it becomes necessary to increase the length of the tilting beam. However the direction of the beam is fixed and parallel to the longitudinal axis of the aircraft, such that when taxiing on the ground, and in particular when turning corners on the ground, the wheels are subjected to large side forces. To minimize these side forces, proposals have been made to mount at least one of the sets of wheels on a swivelling axle which is steered simultaneously with the steering of the auxiliary landing gear used for steering the aircraft while it is running on the ground. Under such circumstances, it is nevertheless necessary to lock the swivelling axle in order to ensure that it takes up a satisfactory direction during take-off and landing of the aircraft, or even when taxiing at speed, e.g. above 30 km/h.
The present invention thus relates to a locking device for locking a swivelling axle mounted on a beam.